Completed military service as a condition for suffrage – a matter of course that was reversed?

As a condition for male suffrage in Sweden between 1909 and 1922 citizens were required to have completed military service. This article investigates how this restriction on voting rights, introduced more orless unanimously, was abolished equally unanimously and with little debate only 13 years later. Two main reasons are pointed out. Firstly, since women were given suffrage in 1921, this restriction affected men only and was therefore suddenly perceived to be an unjust discrimination against the latter. Secondly, this restriction was closely linked to the particular political situation in Sweden around the turn of the twentieth century. For decades the twin issues of military and suffrage reform had been interlinked and thus blocked each other until they were resolved in 1901 and 1909 respectively. Once they had been resolved, the political connection between them rapidly became redundant, as did the symbolic and practical expression of this connection, namely completed military service as a condition for suffrage.